There’s more to backlinks than link building and understanding this can help your site see the best results

By now, we are all pretty aware of the importance of backlinks and link building. In fact, it’s probably fair to say that any SEO strategy that doesn’t prioritize building backlinks, is one that will struggle to yield any long-term success.
A cornerstone of SEO, link building is an absolute must for brands aiming to improve organic search rankings and maximize online visibility. Backlinks are still one of the most important SEO ranking signals, and actually, they correlate more with top-ranking pages than any other ranking factor.
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Introducing the periodic table of linking building and acquisition

This article takes a look at the various levels of link building tactics commonly known throughout the SEO and digital marketing industry to address their relevance in today’s market. Backlinks remains a pillar of SEO ranking success, although the methodology behind acquiring them is ever-changing. Keep up to speed with the best practice for sculpting a healthy backlink profile with this simple and easy-to-follow guide.

Is link building still relevant for successful SEO?

Yes, but not in the same way it was 10 years ago. The algorithms no longer rely solely on the quantity of backlinks to rank websites in search results. Experts still agree that backlinks are critical for conquering SEO, however, many other factors now come into play - localization, mobile, contextualization of on-site content to name but a…

Using press releases to increase awareness and improve SEO

Using press releases to gain awareness and backlinks to your site was once a hot topic in SEO, but like everything that is hot in SEO, it is quickly forgotten about. But that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile - far from it! Online press releases are still an effective way to repurpose content you are already creating for traditional PR and use to your advantage online. I'm amazed when reviewing backlink profiles how often it's a tactic that's missed.
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What are the benefits of using Online PR?

How link reclamation is the best way to save SEO rankings

Link building is one of the most talked-about subjects in SEO and digital marketing. As a search term, it’s maintained a pretty constant popularity (after peaking in 2012 right around the first Penguin release).
A lot of the conversation surrounding backlinks and link building is centered on how to build new ones, and that’s a good conversation to have. But it’s missing an important part of backlinks: maintaining existing links.
Here’s the Google Trends graph for “link building” over the last 5 years:

What is Link Reclamation?

Link reclamation is the process of finding broken or removed links to your site and fixing and replacing them with updated URLs. While not as flashy as link building, link reclamation is a vital part of getting the most out of your link profile and maintaining…

How to make the most out of SEO tools to increase your internet presence

When it comes to SEO, you can’t have enough hacks or tricks up your sleeve (at least, I can’t). After all, ranking on Page 1 of the Google can take your business from zero to hero pretty quickly. So all of us digital marketers try our very best to achieve the coveted page 1 rank for a high-volume keyword.
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SEO 101 states; the more* links pointing to your page, the better. But just how long does it take to influence the SERPs?

*by more, I mean more quality links and not spammy links obtained by blackhat techniques.
Kristina Kledzik, recently published an article on Moz about her findings after experimenting with some of her old posts.
She started by using some of her less-popular posts on Distilled (where she works) and set about picking out 76 links pointing to pages which are all similar to each other in content, and they didn't change that content (significantly) for 6 months. She focused on rankings for target keywords with a 25–35% Keyword Difficulty Rating (A Moz metric if you're interested) and she looked at two versions of their target keywords, so she could have a bit more data.
…

3 case studies showing how negative SEO works

Negative search engine optimization (SEO) can take many forms, but the most dangerous are those you never see coming. It’s not indulging in 'black hat tricks' hoping you’ll never get caught, getting lazy when defining 'quality content' or getting talked into invisible text as a means for boosting your rankings. The worst kind of negative SEO is an attack from the competition. It can be many things, but some of the most common include:
A competitor buying 'bad links' and then pointing them to your site to sink your rankings
Hacking websites to inflict damage
'Review bombing,' which seems like a positive thing at first, but when the competition floods review sites with glowing reviews for you it seems 'paid for' and can result in a search engine penalty
Reporting you falsely to Google for participating in black hat tricks
Stealing non-indexed content
DMCA removal requests
Unfortunately, website owners have very…

Broken Links = Missed Opportunities

It's common with the growth of website Content Management Systems that websites have multiple editors & frequent updates, so this can easily result in mistakes. An area that often suffers as a result is internal & external linking from within webpages.
While easy to manually check, it is often the case that sites are just too big to go through page-by-page to check. Luckily for webmasters and marketers alike there are tools that will help you identify broken links on your website.

Why are broken links such a bad thing?

Not only are you disrupting user journeys through the website which could leave users frustrated with your brand, but you are also making search engine spiders jobs more difficult and therefore reducing your opportunity to rank well. If search engines are unable to crawl / index you site easily they will be less likely to appropriately rank it.
Broken links from other sites are also an…

5 reasons you should continue guest blogging and 10 actions you should take given Matt Cutt’s latest advice affecting content marketers

Alert importance: [rating=5]
Recommended link: Matt Cutts: The Decay and Fall of guest blogging for SEO
If you work in SEO, the biggest development so far in 2014 is Matt Cutts of Google's clear guidance for marketers to cease guest blogging. But Guest blogging isn’t just an obscure SEO tactic, it’s used by many media sites and brands, so many businesses who practice content marketing will be affected by this.
His new post this week starts with this seemingly unequivocal piece of guidance:
“Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company”.
He…

A step-by-step tutorial to managing Link detoxing

Link detoxing is extremely important for many reasons, including keeping your site active and penalty free. One bad link is a problem, but many bad links are a huge setback and should not be taken lightly.
When you do a link detox you can either use a program or go through all of your links manually to check for any bad links. After finding bad links the next step is to get rid of them and delete them off of your profile.
Questions that are often asked about this process include how do I spot bad links, should I use a program or do it manually, if I use a program which one, and how do you get penalties removed after the bad links are gone? You can find all of the answers to these questions and more below, as well as some basic information about…